Posted
by
Soulskillon Thursday October 15, 2009 @02:10PM
from the god-help-us-if-they-learn-how-to-rocket-jump dept.

An anonymous reader writes "In this week's issue of Nature, scientists from Princeton University trained mice to navigate around a virtual environment using a setup that resembles a combination of a giant trackball and a mini-iMax theater displaying a virtual world rendered using a modified version of the Quake 2 open source game engine. (Here's the academic paper, subscription required.) They hold the mouse's head still atop a giant trackball, which the mouse turns by running. The scientists use the rotations to move the mouse around in the virtual environment, and when he reaches certain places, he gets a reward. Because they are able to hold the head still, they can stick microscopic glass electrodes into individual neurons in the hippocampus of this mouse as it 'navigates.' They find the neural activity that resembles activity during real life navigation, and learned new things about the inputs and computations that are going on inside these neurons, which weren't known before. No word as of yet whether the scientists plan on giving the mice control of the gun. Wonder whether John Carmack ever envisioned this when he opened up the Quake code?"

1) Not impacted by weather2) Not possible to get run over by a virtual truck3) Few financially losses from being virtually mugged4) Fewer possibilities for disease when you virtually hook up with that virtually hottie you met on your virtual walk

Well, add in the gun, a city with lots of 3D buildings and some physics and you have an experience that's anything but mundane. Heck, take out the person, add in a car which allows you to race through the city. Now put guns back on the car and make it multi player for a "Death Race" kind of experience. Even wilder, allow a player to roam a real city using their exported World of Warcraft character and mount for a crazy glimpse of what it would look like if you merged our modern cities with a magic world. No

I'd be interested to see what would happen if they provided some kind of negative feedback to the mouse when a player shot it, and then just let them run rampant in there. I'd imagine mice would have a far better reaction rate then people in it.

I was thinking something along the same sort of lines; there's no force feedback (tactile feeback/negative feedback) for when he runs into stuff. I would like to see how the neuro-map for a mouse just being placed into the simulator looks compared to a mouse who spent his whole life "on the ball". I bet my brain's neuro-map looks a lot different when I'm playing TF2 compared to when I'm mountain biking or paintballing.

Hmm, yeah, and they should train the mouse to fire the gun by rewarding it – first, make it find a target and operate the "gun firing" switch (whatever that is). Then train it to find a person and target them and "fire". Finally, put it up against armed opponents, give negative feedback if the mouse gets shot, and see what happens. Will the mouse go for positive feedback (by shooting opponents), will it hide/flee from the opponents (to escape the negative feedback it learns to associate with being shot by them), or will it be intelligent enough to create a new self-defense mechanism whereby it learns that by shooting the opponents before they can shoot it, it can both avoid the negative feedback and at the same time get positive feedback?

I suspect learning to use the in-game offense/defense mechanisms would tax the mouse's brain far beyond its capacity already without adding the complexity of choosing between different weapons.

Although that does make me think of another interesting thing. Mice are more of a foraging creature... they look for food and hide from predators, fighting back only when cornered. A FPS, on the other hand, lends itself to predatory tactics... seeking your prey and killing them without being killed by their defensive tactics. Is it even possible for a mouse to learn to exhibit predatory behavior using a reward system, if their prey tendencies to flee or hide are being simultaneously triggered as their target fights back? If a bunch of mice were put into such a simulation, would they all hide from each other? Would they actively seek and kill each other? Or would there be some of both, where some mice tended to behave in a predatory manner (aggressive personalities?) while others hid (passive/survival)?

Mice are more of a foraging creature... they look for food and hide from predators, fighting back only when cornered. A FPS, on the other hand, lends itself to predatory tactics...

The implication is that cats would be better FPS players than mice. The problem of course is that cats are sit-and-wait predators, sitting quietly and waiting for their prey to move before suddenly striking. In other words, campers. So playing on a server against a bunch of cats would probably suck. Dogs, which are pursuit predat

That's the key, though... what you described is exactly a "foraging" tactic. Find the lever, hit the lever, get the cheese.

When the toon is able to interact with the mouse in a negative way (unpleasant) in addition to a positive way (pleasant), it's no longer just a maze or puzzle to solve. That's what would be so fascinating: would the mouse have the intelligence to plan and attempt to get the positive stimuli (reward) while avoiding the negative stimuli. (What you mentioned – the "target" is moving

This is a great example of open source really helping humanity learn new and interesting things.

It's great to see that the tools provided by open software can really help speed up research.

I wonder what would happen if old versions of adobe photoshop, 3ds max, or cubase were left to open source for research purposes. What kind of discoveries would scientists make with programs like these?

I wonder what would happen if old versions of adobe photoshop, 3ds max, or cubase were left to open source for research purposes. What kind of discoveries would scientists make with programs like these?

The photoshop alone would lead to a wave of discoveries. Some of the discoveries might even turn out to be real!

(like as in not just photoshopped "that cell should be red to support my hypothesis so I'll just use a little filter action...")

Given how little Photoshop has actually evolved in the last decade, and the excitement generated by Photoshop, it would undermine GIMP, create a project dedicated to improving the old Photoshop and ultimately it would give Adobe a free competitor to Photoshop that's nowhere near as bloated and probably better.

People keep telling me that I should have an open source scheme for my program (see Homepage link) but yeah, all it would do would help people make a free competitor. See it's fine to do it with a ga

Seriously, what did they really learn from this? The benefit to humanity here is disproportionately less than the cruelty involved. It just seems like an excuse to play around with Quake because "dude, wouldn't it be cool if we could train our mice to play?" I wouldn't let anyone involved in this kind of experiment date my sister.

This is what happens when you have a free flow of information. Carmack got well paid for Quake 2 then opened the source up (eventually). If more people/institutions/corps did this it seems there would not only be more hearts and flowers (for all the open source hippies) but there would be MORE technology we could patent! The ability to make MORE money!

If I have 2 innovative products and I decide to open them up to general use, and at least 1 new idea comes from that, someone out there will create something with it and hopefully create a net gain for the system as a whole in the long run.

I know people are selfish, but for Science's sake, open up your information already! The economy is dying a slow, painful death (though the market might refute that this week), wouldn't the SOLUTION in The States be to repeal some copyright laws and let information flow freely so as to foster innovation like this? Even if it's a mouse on a ball in a hall at the mall, I have to believe only good could come from opening things up a bit more.

The economy is dying a slow, painful death (though the market might refute that this week), wouldn't the SOLUTION in The States be to repeal some copyright laws and let information flow freely so as to foster innovation like this?

That kinda depends on what you mean, doesn't it? I'm not sure most software companies will be making too much money selling free software, which in turn won't help the market too much, I wouldn't think. Or maybe you meant to let "old" information flow freely, like Quake 2. That'd be different...

The world was shocked today when the World Cyber Games championship was taken from fragu4life, champion for the last several years, by a newcomer, sirsqueaksalot. Information is sketchy as to the newcomer's origins, but it has been stated that he greatly enjoys cheese.

Mice already know how to interface with computers, having built the greatest computer in all space and time. The mice are running this quake experiment just so that they have a bit of fun "decommissioning" the hardware later.

It's all about intent. Researchers who study living systems by killing and mutilating other creatures without awareness and compassion do so at their own expense. I've met researchers who kill animals without having adequately made peace with themselves or the creatures involved. Instead, what often occurs is that they shut parts of themselves off and try to believe that "it's all for the greater good", (usually a lie). Some are better at convincing thems

Tom Brown Jr. told a story about how his grandfather sent him off to hunt and kill a deer, but told him he wasn't allowed to take a bow & arrow, which he explained was too impersonal. He had to use a knife. So off into the woods he ventured, carrying no food. Only a knife.

He found a group of deer, stalked them and learned their patterns. The deer were very aware of him because they are deer, and after a week or so, they had accepted them into their environment. He picked out his target;

How do i disable that fucking live twitter feed on the right? I clicked on the link to read a Wired article, not listen to random dumbasses whining!

Actually, on any given screen other than your own, you appear as a random dumb-ass. And gee, you are also whining. --About a non-issue as it happens. If you want to insulate your precious self from the outside world, then it's entirely possible to do this by configuring your browser accordingly.